The reliable mechanical operation and condition of appliances, machinery, and equipment, such as industrial appliances, are critical to not only the economic success of an operation or business, but also to the safety of personnel, property, and the equipment itself. Such operations and businesses may include, for example, factories, refineries, hospitals, storage facilities, data centers, retail establishments, and manufacturing facilities. As such, the regular and routine maintenance and testing of the mechanical operation and condition of such equipment is necessary and critical. Similarly, as equipment parts become worn or damaged, these conditions should be expeditiously identified and corrected as needed.
Unfortunately, although regular and routine maintenance is necessary and critical, it is often time consuming, requires specialized knowledge, often requires dedicated technical personnel and equipment, and is expensive and disruptive. Depending on the operation or process, such as a manufacturing process, the time that equipment is off-line to perform testing can interrupt production schedules and harm overall business operations. The risk of inadvertently damaging equipment while disassembling and reassembling (which is often required) for testing or improperly performing a test is significant. Any unexpected or improperly handled step may needlessly extend an equipment outage resulting in operational losses.
Further, many testing procedures are inefficient, imprecise, not properly performed, and may result in replacing parts that do not need to be replaced. All of these issues cause significant economic harm.
Similarly, the testing itself can be expensive, separate and apart from the other issues just discussed. For a variety of reasons, businesses often do not have the economic resources to employ technical personnel to perform needed testing, and the costs to hire third party contractors can also be economically challenging. Such testing, however, can be critical to the economic viability of an operation as well as to provide a safe operating environment to protect both life and property. For example, NFPA 70E: Standard for Electrical Safety involves workplace safety regulations that require certain electrical equipment performance that must be met to ensure a safe working environment as well as compliance with safety regulations, such as OSHA regulations. As another example, with respect to electric circuit breakers, it is often cost prohibitive to take circuit breakers, along with associated equipment powered through such circuit breakers, out of service for testing.
Further, such performance tests of the mechanical operations of a device may be inaccurate and result in wrong conclusions. For example, the testing of the mechanical operations of a circuit breaker is difficult, time consuming, and results may be incorrect.
For example, depending on the voltage and/or current rating of a circuit breaker, often an electrical arc is generated when the circuit breaker is tripped. Various techniques are used in circuit breakers to arrest such electrical arcs to minimize any damage they may cause. Electrical arcing in circuit breakers are a known hazard and risk. The speed in which a breaker opens when an open circuit or “trip” signal is received may affect the arc hazard and other safety issues regarding the amount of current that is allowed to pass through the circuit breaker to other equipment and network elements. In most situations, the faster a breaker opens, the better. When a circuit breaker remains in a closed state for extended periods of time, however, the supporting mechanical parts and systems may deteriorate or result in a condition or state in which the circuit breaker will not open as quickly as desired. This may be caused by any number of reasons, such as, for example, oxidation, galling, loss of vacuum, and/or uneven or undesirable lubrication distribution within the mechanical systems and/or parts. This problem is difficult to diagnose because of the inability to easily replicate these conditions when testing the mechanical properties of a circuit breaker. In fact, once a circuit breaker is opened and closed, negative performance issues caused by extended periods of inactivity, such as, for example, galling and inadequate lubrication, are overcome (for the time being), and are very difficult if not impossible to detect through conventional circuit breaker testing. Unfortunately, the condition of extended circuit breaker trip inactivity is often overlooked and/or not tested. This may result in inaccurate testing, inadequate maintenance, and increased safety risks. The difficulties of effectively and efficiently testing mechanical systems of other equipment, systems and devices are well known.